


The Gift of A Friend

by Kairi_Ruka



Category: The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Hinted LitPollo, Not Beta Read, Out of Character, Self-Indulgent, The Waystation (Percy Jackson)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26846941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kairi_Ruka/pseuds/Kairi_Ruka
Summary: He smiled and ruffled her hair."Yeah, I am," he confirmed, almost adding sorry to disappoint just to be self-deprecating. But seeing Georgina's pleased face, he didn't have the heart to do so.Maybe gotten attached wasn't really a bad thing after all.
Relationships: Hemithea | Emmie/Josephine "Jo", Lityerses & Georgina (Percy Jackson)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	The Gift of A Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Characters and set belong to Rick Riordan. I've got no profit from this fic 
> 
> Warning: Out of character. Like, seriously. 
> 
> You've been warned. Enjoy!

Lityerses didn't quite remember how he ended up falling asleep while sitting in the griffin stable, with Abelard and his egg on the opposite of the room. The male griffin hadn't completely accepted him yet, he still recognized Lit's scent from the zoo, but they somehow had managed to the point where both of them silently agreed to not bother each other more than necessary.

So, well, here he was, waking up in the griffin stable. He grunted when he straightened his position leaning on the wall, one hand automatically checked for his sword, still on the floor on his side.

What he didn't expect, though, was to see a kid laying down on their -- her? -- stomach, drawing something brightly-coloured on a piece of paper right beside where his sword was, crayons scattered around her.

"What…." Lit remembered a little girl living in the Waystation, of course, Emmie and Jo's daughter. What was her name, again? Ah, right, Georgina. Okay. So he had a name and an identity, but he still had no clue why this kid would be so relaxed doing something so mundane _in the same room as him_.

"Oh, hey, you're awake!" the kid said as she looked up to him from her drawing. She sat up and fiddled with one of her crayons as she kept staring at him. He stared back.

"You were sleeping through lunch," Georgina offered shyly. "Calypso said you'd be up here."

Okay. That explained only a little part of the whole situation, but okay. The sun was still glaring harshly from the sky like some kind of scolding, so at least it hadn't been too long after lunch.

"Why are you here, then?" Lit decided to ask. He quickly picked up his sword and put it in its sheath. Jo and Emmie tolerated him enough, but surely a blatant sword in front of their little girl would cross the line. Lit didn't want to test that.

"It's nice up here. And the light is enough for me to see my drawings without lamps," Georgina explained. She had stopped her fiddling and lowered her hands back to the paper, scrawling some colours on it, even though Lit could see that most of her attention was still pinned on him.

"No. I mean, why are you here if you know I'm here?" and on that note, had either Emmie or Jo or the others given the little girl the 'okay' to go to the stable, knowing he was there?

Georgina tilted her head as she exchanged her yellow crayon for the red one. "You're alone up here," she said simply. "I don't want you to be lonely."

Lit blinked. The words were so absurd that he decided that this whole situation couldn't be more than a dream. Or maybe he was hallucinating? Well, it's not like this was the first time it happened. Being turned into an inanimate object for a worthwhile of time could give him more than just a headache and disorientation.

Whatever. It was best if he just played along, so he did.

"Alright," he said with a nod before leaning back to the wall, squinting his eyes at the sun -- was it just his imagination or the sunlight was getting softer? His sword was digging to his back uncomfortably, but he managed to fall back into a half-sleeping state.

He was aware of a little scuffle here and there around him, but it was unthreatening enough that his body didn't feel the need to get up and make them go away.

When he -- finally -- woke up properly, the sun was already setting, making the sky glowing with a reddish hue, and he was alone in the stable like he was supposed to be.

🎨

Lit, once again, woke up in the middle of the night. He couldn't remember if it was because of a nightmare or something else, he just suddenly sat up, eyes open wide.

He sighed after staying on his bed for a few minutes staring at the ceiling, sullenly accepting the fact that he wouldn't get back to sleep until morning.

The Waystation had its way to somehow expand its size so Lit could always wander around in a circle while not feeling like an utter idiot for _wandering around in a circle_. Usually, wherever he went, there would be a new door carved on the wall, leading to a new corridor that would only end when he wanted it to stop.

 _Usually_ , he didn't find himself getting led to a sleeping seven years old kid on the couch with colorized papers scattered around her. Even in the dimly lit room (pun not intended), Lit recognized the kid as Georgina. Why did she slip out of her room in the middle of the night, Lit never really cared. He rarely interacts with children after all. Welp, scratch that, he never interacts with children. Except for his fight with Meg at the zoo -- but he didn't really think that counts.

He stood there for a few moments, unsure what to do. Should he just pick her up? Should he let her sleep on the couch? Wake her up? He had no idea, but letting the kid sleep on the couch all night felt wrong. For one, he knew from experience that sleeping on the couch meant sore neck and back in the morning.

… That left him picking her up and bringing her back to her room. Which he had no clue how to do. How do you pick up a kid anyway?

In the end, he picked Georgina up like he would do with a cat, with his hands under her armpits. He looked around and saw a door with a few children's drawings pinned on its surface. He kicked the door open and placed the little girl in his hands on the small bed. Even that cluttered with papers and crayons, plus more than a few cleaner pipe dolls. The pale walls were also filled with drawings. Lit had to admit, Georgina's dedication was admirable.

Georgina mumbled something, but didn't wake up as she pulled one of the pillows closer for her to snuggle with. Lit took the edge of a kicked-down blanket and gently draped it over her body.

He then walked out and softly pulled the door close, before heading to the kitchen. He stopped at the couch and curiously stared at the scattered papers. His eyes caught a crude drawing of someone wearing a red shirt and took it for further inspection.

It was him, no doubt. Georgina's drawing wasn't detailed enough, as a child's drawing should, but there was no one else in the Waystation that she would draw with a red line on the forehead and a golden sword strapped on the back. Drawing-Lit was standing with his arms spread in a room that could only probably be the griffin stable. Abelard and his egg sketched beside him. To his chagrin, she also managed to include a sun on the upper left side of the paper near drawing-Lit's head, and between the sun and him there was a small, lopsided red heart.

Would Georgina notice if he kept this one drawing in his room so no one else would ever see it?

Wait, a more important question; is he _that_ obvious that even a seven-years old could read him easily? That thought was just plain terrifying.

Lit grimaced but he put the drawing back down. He was … a lot of a person, but he had never been much of an overthinker. Whatever happened later is future-him's problem. Present-him just wanted some coffee.

🎨

"The Hunters of Artemis will come today for a visit," Emmie informed him one day. "I'm pretty sure the subject won't be watered-down enough for Georgie, so can you tend to her just for a while?"

Lit blinked dumbly as the words processed in his head. "What?" he said. "Why me? You can ask Calypso or whoever!"

Emmie sighed. "They are bringing the combat ostriches. It's either you're staying with Georgie or you're staying with me, which also means you're staying with them," she explained.

At the mention of the former combat animal, Lit winced. He had gotten at least five scars from when they trampled him. He didn't want to see them again, ever -- _hopefully_ for the rest of his life. But the other choice didn't exactly excite him either.

"Can't I just stay in my room?" he asked.

Emmie shot him a glare. "No."

And so Lit chose the lesser of two evils -- babysit a seven-year old kid who asked him to tell her a story. He had been hoping that Georgina would be busy with her drawings as usual so he wouldn't need to talk to her much. Seemed like the Fates wanted to play with him instead.

"Come on," she said with the most pleading voice and face she could muster. "Just one story? I promise I will be quiet the whole time!"

So, just to be clear, Lit did have a little sister, but their age gap wasn't a lot, and they grew up together until Midas decided that both of them were worth more as golden statues than children. In conclusion, no, Lit didn't know how to tend to a seven-years old asking him for a story.

"I … don't have any story to tell," he said with honesty. He didn't grow up with bedtime stories and his life experiences weren't exactly family-friendly -- her mothers would flay him alive if he ever told the little girl about his journey killing people for fun.

The moment Georgina's hopeful expression dropped, Lit almost wanted to relent and try to make up a story for her. "Okay," she said softly and smiled encouragingly at him, clearly trying to cover her disappointment.

Lit's attention strayed to a drawing of two griffins on the wall, one of them carrying an egg while they fly. He looked back at Georgina's crestfallen expression and sighed.

"Well, maybe…," he started to say and she looked up, the hopeful expression back on her face. Whoop, no backing down, then. "Has anyone ever told you about how a … a bad man kidnapped the griffins?"

The little girl shook her head in excitement and she shifted closer to him. "No! He really kidnapped Abelard and Heloise?" she asked.

Lit nodded. "Yes. Well, I don't know how he did it in the first place, but he chained them in a cage in a zoo for a long time," he narrated, his mind starting to filter out the more gruesome detail. "The griffins were unhappy. They don't like to be chained or locked up in a cage."

"No one does, though," Georgina interrupted quietly.

"True. Anyway, they got, um … treated badly and they wanted to leave but they couldn't, especially with Heloise ready to have an egg. But one night, their saviors came to their cage." Lit's mouth twitched slightly in a threat of a smile as he recalled what had happened that night. He glanced at Georgina, who was still listening with rapt attention by his side.

"They faced the bad man's … uh, the bad man's friends." he grimaced at the thought of him being _friends_ with Commodus. "One of them, with a sword, wanted to hurt the, eh, the…," he trailed off, wasn't sure how to describe Apollo and Calypso's role to a child.

"The helpers?" Georgina offered.

"Yes, the helpers. The swordsman managed to corner them, but right before bad things could happen, another helper came out of nowhere and fought the swordsman while her friends released the griffins. Then after more fights that you don't need to know about, they finally took off from the zoo with Abelard and Heloise, free from the bad man's clutch and back to their home," Lit said, finishing his story. Georgina, though, seemed to have some questions.

"Where's the end?"

Lit shrugged. "There's no end. The story continues from there to today, but I can't tell you a story that long. Both of us would be bored."

"But Heloise isn't here anymore," the little girl pointed out. Her tone wasn't accusatory, but Lit grimaced. He didn't understand why the death of an animal he had helped to lock up made him feel guilty, despite all the people he had killed before. It didn't make any sense. (It was probably his newly-discovered conscience but it still didn't make things make sense to him.)

"She sacrificed herself," he simply said after a while.

Georgina seemed to accept this easily. "That's really nice of her. What about the swordman?"

The son of Midas was temporarily taken aback by the question. "The _swordsman_ ," he corrected her pronunciation. "What about him?"

"Is he alright? Mama Jo said that the bad man who captured me -- and Abelard and Heloise -- had gotten away from here, so what about the swordsman?"

"He was … he was injured," Lit found himself saying. "The bad man didn't want him as a … friend anymore, so he hurt him."

Georgina frowned deeply, and Lit was in awe for a second at how easy a child could react to different things people said. "That is awful," she muttered, pointing out the obvious.

Lit remembered all the bad things he did and grimaced again. "Maybe," he finally responded. "But then the helpers came back and fought the bad man with the hunters -- you know them, right?"

At that, and once again Lit was in awe, Georgina's frown disappeared and she smiled. "Yes! Mama Emmie told me about them once," she answered.

"Well, them. They helped too, shooting the swordsman a few times," he added with a laugh, startling himself. "Then one of them -- not the hunters -- decided to take me- uh, I mean the swordsman back with them. No one knew why, but he did."

"Because the bad man hurt him," Georgina said with certainty.

Lit gave her a wry smile. "Maybe, maybe not. Long story short, the swordsman traded some information about the bad man so he's allowed to live in the helpers' home. I guess that's the general end." he shrugged.

"That's a good story!" the little girl said cheerfully and to Lit's surprise, she moved so she leaned on his left side. He froze for at least ten seconds before forcing himself to relax. "Not as good as Mama Jo's stories, though," she added without malice.

"I can imagine," Lit responded flatly, could only imagine vaguely what kind of tales Jo whipped up for her kid.

Georgina wasn't quite done, though. "Wait, you said the sword- _s_ -man gets to live in their home! That means he's here somewhere!" she exclaimed, straightening herself up and alarming Lit who almost unsheathed his sword out of instinct. "Is he still here? Why do I not see him around?" she asked.

"That's…." Lit wasn't sure how to answer. "He … he doesn't like to be seen, so he usually spends his time alone in his roo- _ahem_ , somewhere."

The girl pursed her lips in thought and shrugged. "Alright," she said. "I'm just hoping I can meet him sometimes."

A soft knock on the open door startled them both before Lit could think of a response. They looked in the door direction and found Jo leaning on the doorframe, an amused smile on her face when Georgina cheered and stood up to hug her.

"Who knows, dear," she said slyly while looking at Lit, who was still sitting on the floor, dumbfounded. "Maybe you have seen him a few times and you just don't realize it's him."

Lit stood up quickly. "Have the wretched ostriches gone?" he demanded. Jo rolled her eyes.

"Yes."

"Then I'll be gone too," he muttered as he walked out of the room.

Jo put a hand on his shoulder, but pulled it back when she felt him flinched. "Thank you for babysitting her," she said earnestly. Lit shrugged.

"It's … okay. I was just telling her a story," he grumbled.

Jo laughed. "I heard the last part. Something about a brooding swordsman?" she said as she let Georgina run to the first floor to greet her other mother.

"... Don't bring that up at dinner, please."

"Well, I won't. Can't promise the same for Georgie. She's always talking about things she likes, and believe it or not, you're now quite high on her list."

Lit sighed in exasperation. He just hoped that no one would tease him about how he made a story about himself -- and describing himself as a brooding, angsty person -- to appease a literal child.

"She's a good kid," he finally said. "Pretty sure I can bribe her with something."

"Don't you teach her things, Lityerses." Uh-oh, she full-named him. That couldn't be good. Well, at least Jo looked more amused than anything else. "Just admit it, you're already attached."

"Of course not."

His denial got thrown back to his face the hard way when he found himself offered to take care of Georgina again for the fourth time that week. But he couldn't care less of the good-natured teasing, even more when he saw her elated face when she found out one day and exclaimed, "so _you're_ the swordsman!" right in front of the whole Waystation occupants.

He smiled and ruffled her hair.

"Yeah, I am," he confirmed, almost adding _sorry to disappoint_ just to be self-deprecating. But seeing Georgina's pleased face, he didn't have the heart to do so.

Maybe gotten attached wasn't really a bad thing after all.

_(Jo had laughed when he blurted that out to her. "I told you so," she said. And honestly? Lit couldn't bring himself to be annoyed. Maybe it wasn't only Georgina he'd gotten attached to. He had friends now.)_

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so, probably wondering why I got the characters swerving badly from their personality. The thing is I've been watching Ducktales reboot and might have mistaken Georgie with Webby and Lityerses with Scrooge a few times
> 
> I hope you guys still like it, though. I'm a sucker for soft brother-sister relationship
> 
> Oh, right! Here's an illustration to Georgie's art featuring Lityerses and Abelard:   
> https://vampiregirlluca.tumblr.com/post/631184561759502336/vampiregirlluca-context-georgies-drawing-that


End file.
